Predator Drones ‘Useless’ in Most Wars, Top Air Force General Says

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Photo Credit: FP

Photo Credit: FP

The drones that have proved so useful at hunting al Qaeda are “useless” in nearly every other battlefield scenario, says a top Air Force general. So, for the first time, the Air Force is proposing culling the fleet of little, propeller-driven MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper drones in favor of stealthier, faster aircraft.

This is because the slow, low-flying drones that killed terrorists in the last decade’s wars have little chance of surviving against an enemy armed with even basic air defenses. Faced with declining defense budgets, Air Force officials want to retire many of the low-tech drones.

“Predators and Reapers are useless in a contested environment,” said Gen. Mike Hostage, chief of the air service’s Air Combat Command, during the Air Force Association’s annual conference outside of Washington.

“Today … I couldn’t put [a Predator or Reaper] into the Strait of Hormuz without having to put airplanes there to protect it,” said the four-star general. This week, the Air Force’s chief of staff, Gen. Mark Welsh, revealed that an F-22 — the planet’s most sophisticated stealth fighter — intercepted Iranian F-4 Phantom jets that were closing in on a U.S. Predator drone over the strait last March. In November 2012, Iranian Su-25 ground attack jets fired on, and missed, an American Predator over the strait.

In 2011, the Pentagon ordered the Air Force to have enough MQ-1s and MQ-9s to fly up to 65 combat air patrols (CAPs) around the world by this year. Each CAP consists of up to four drones. Even as the service worked to make this happen, it questioned the order, saying there was no official requirement stating the military’s need for what many in the air service believe are little more than flying lawn mowers.

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Two Decades after Her Affair with Bill Clinton, Gennifer Flowers Reveals They’d Be Together If Not for Chelsea; Says Bill Told Her Hillary is Bisexual

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Photo Credit: Michael lp

Photo Credit: Michael lp

Their 12-year affair made Gennifer Flowers one of the most high profile mistresses in America. Now, two decades after they split amid scandal, the former news reporter from Little Rock, Arkansas wants to ‘sit down and talk’ with Bill Clinton.

In an exclusive interview with MailOnline, Gennifer has spoken of her deep regret at turning down Clinton’s pleas to talk some eight years ago and revealed her belief that they would still be together today, were it not the birth of Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea.

She said: ‘We have some unresolved issues that it would be nice to sit down and talk about now. He was the love of my life and I was the love of his life and you don’t get over those things.’

By then all lines of communication with Clinton had been severed and she had no contact with him for 13 years when he called out of the blue. She said: ‘He called me back in 2005 in New Orleans. He wanted to put on the hoodie and jog on over like he used to.

Read more from this story HERE. (CAUTION: Racy Images)

Men Give Up on their Appearance at the Age of 46 – While Women Care About their Looks for 13 Years Longer

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Photo Credit: REX/Lions Gate/Everett

Photo Credit: REX/Lions Gate/Everett

Men lose interest in fashion trends and being ‘cool’ at the age of 46, a new survey has revealed.

But women put the effort in for a full 13 years longer – focusing on their appearance and general fitness until at least age 59.

The research also found women were nearly twice as likely to lack confidence in their image, with more than one third unable to claim they were at least content with their appearance.

It also emerged one third of the 2,000 men and women who took part in the study blamed a lack of happiness in contributing to their low confidence levels in the way they look.

More than half of those surveyed said they aren’t in great shape physically while a third admit they have never been the type to bother with doing exercise.

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Dozens Of TSA Employees Fired, Suspended For Illegal Gambling Ring At Pittsburgh Int’l Airport (+video)

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Photo Credit: KDKA

Photo Credit: KDKA

Dozens of local Transportation Security Administration workers have been fired or suspended after they were caught in an illegal gambling ring at Pittsburgh International Airport.

TSA sources tell the KDKA Investigators that the officers were fired or suspended Thursday morning.

The investigation took a few months. TSA took a look at more than 300 of its employees who work at Pittsburgh International Airport.

Sources confirm TSA employees on the job set up an office betting pool of sorts, employees betting year-round on all of the big sporting events, the Super Bowl, NCAA Final Four, the World Series, the Stanley Cup and more.

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Food Stamps Used to Pay for Tattoos in North Carolina

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Photo Credit: Jhong Dizon | Photography

Photo Credit: Jhong Dizon | Photography

A tattoo parlor in Raleigh, North Carolina reportedly took food stamps as payment for tattoos.

The shop is called Addiction Tattooz. Its owner, Clifford Craig Tittle, was arrested after police discovered that he was accepting Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards as payment. EBT cards look and function like a debit card but actually store “food stamp” subsidies. The cards are only supposed to be used to purchase food.

Tittle accepted EBT cards at least four separate times, revealed the Agriculture Department.

As reported by The Daily Caller, “On Sept. 4 two people charged $421 and $417.61 to EBT cards (in addition to cash) for work at Ink Addiction Tattooz…

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Meet the Microsoft Billionaire Who’s Trying to Reboot U.S. Counterterrorism

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Photo Credit: FP

Photo Credit: FP

Add to Nathan Myhrvold’s already eclectic résumé — which includes ex-chief technology officer of Microsoft, co-founder of one of the world’s largest patent-holding firms, and author of a $625 cookbook — a new credit: terrorism expert.

Myhrvold, a famous autodidact, recently published a 33-page paper that he rousingly calls, “Strategic Terrorism: A Call to Action.” The core of his argument is easy enough to understand, and probably true: The United States is more focused on stopping a guy who blows up an airplane and kills 300 people than on a guy who intentionally spreads smallpox and kills 300,000.

“In my estimation, the U.S. government, although well-meaning, is unable to protect us from the greatest threats we face,” Myhrvold writes. “[M]odern technology can provide small groups of people with much greater lethality than ever before. We now have to worry that private parties might gain access to weapons that are as destructive as — or possibly even more destructive than — those held by any nation-state.”

Myhrvold to Washington: National security … you’re doin’ it wrong.

The paper is accessible to a layman, which is what Myhrvold was when he started thinking about the strategic aspects of terrorism not long after the 9/11 attacks. He wrote the piece in his spare time — apparently he does have some — and it was mostly finished in 2006. Myhrvold had no intention of publishing it until recently, when he met Benjamin Wittes, the editor of the influential national security and legal site Lawfare. Wittes thought that parts of the paper accurately described the threat posed by small actors with big weapons, and he decided that Myhrvold’s analysis deserved a wider audience. Lawfare published the paper in July.

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Alaska Police Seek Author of Mysterious Note That Saved Life of Beaten Teen

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Police responding to a typed, anonymous note slipped under their door helped save the life of a severely beaten teenager found in an abandoned Anchorage house scheduled for demolition two days later, authorities said Thursday.

Police hoped the author of the note would come forward with more information about the situation.

Police have identified the teen as 18-year-old James Clinton and said he remained unconscious and in critical condition.

The investigation began Monday night with the note to police at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Chief Rick Shell said two officers were on duty at their desks in a squad room about 8:30 p.m. when one of them spotted it on the floor.

“He picked it up, read it, let the other officer read it,” Shell said. “The other officer saw content that led him to believe that the Anchorage Police Department should be involved.”

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Pope Says Church Is ‘Obsessed’ With Gays, Abortion and Birth Control

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Six months into his papacy, Pope Francis sent shock waves through the Roman Catholic church on Thursday with the publication of his remarks that the church had grown “obsessed” with abortion, gay marriage and contraception, and that he had chosen not to talk about those issues despite recriminations from critics.

His surprising comments came in a lengthy interview in which he criticized the church for putting dogma before love, and for prioritizing moral doctrines over serving the poor and marginalized. He articulated his vision of an inclusive church, a “home for all” — which is a striking contrast with his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, the doctrinal defender who envisioned a smaller, purer church.

Francis told the interviewer, a fellow Jesuit: “It is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time. The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently.

“We have to find a new balance,” the pope continued, “otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel.”

The pope’s interview did not change church doctrine or policies, but it instantly changed its tone. His words evoked gratitude and hope from many liberal Catholics who had felt left out in the cold during the papacies of Benedict and his predecessor, John Paul II, which together lasted 35 years. Some lapsed Catholics suggested on social media a return to the church, and leaders of gay rights and gay Catholic groups called on bishops to abandon their fight against gay marriage.

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How The U.S. Military Plans To Hijack The Airwaves

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Photo Credit: Forbes

Photo Credit: Forbes

If you want to take over a nation, then first take over its airwaves. Broadcast your messages and interdict the enemy’s ability to broadcast theirs. When the U.S. attacked Iraq in 1991, or NATO bombed Serbia in 1999, among the first targets destroyed were TV and radio stations. When there is a military coup in Africa, the first buildings the rebels usually grab are the radio and TV studios.

So it is illuminating that the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), the organization that oversees America’s elite special forces, is quietly searching for equipment that will effectively give it control over every FM and AM radio station in an area. The short, innocuous-sounding announcement on the Federal Business Opportunities site states that SOCOM seeks vendors to provide “a radio broadcast system capable of searching for and acquiring every AM and FM radio station in a specific area and then broadcasting a message(s) in the target area on all acquired AM and FM radio station frequencies.” SOCOM wants equipment that is both lightweight and sophisticated enough to detect and broadcast over multiple frequencies simultaneously. And SOCOM wants it fast. The equipment must be at least Technology Readiness Level 8, a Pentagon measure of technological maturity that means that it is fully developed, tested and ready for use.

“It appears that SOCOM is looking to purchase a preferably commercial off the shelf friendly-foreign or domestic advanced form of Software-Defined Radio (SDR) as a solution for their tactical and theater Psyops or MISO missions,” says a military expert who asked to remain anonymous. “The exact platform – whether it’s ground-based or airborne – cannot be determined from the solicitation. It would appear to be an urgent request because of the TRL 8 or above stipulation. ”

This is what the Pentagon now calls Military Information Support Operations, or MISO. This is a far less sinister name for what the rest of us call Psychological Operations, or Psyops. that subtle form of warfare that uses carefully tailored information – truthful or not – to change foreign hearts and minds in a way that furthers U.S. interests.

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Starbucks CEO: If You Have a Gun, We Don’t Want Your Business

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dump starbucksThe day after the mass shooting at the Naval Yard in Washington, D.C., Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced that guns aren’t welcome at Starbucks. With Schultz’s unfortunate comment to a traditional marriage supporter just six months ago, many conservatives will undoubtedly regard this as yet another slap against them by the world’s largest coffee retailer.

In his “Open Letter,” the CEO acknowledged that Starbucks’ past approach to open-carry was to “follow local laws [and] permit it in states where allowed and we prohibit it in states where these laws don’t exist.” Then, without citing any specific instance, Schultz said the open-carry debate was becoming “increasingly uncivil” and “even threatening.”

Although Schultz suggests that the “presence of a weapon in our stores is unsettling and upsetting for many of our customers,” he doesn’t explain how a concealed weapon would bother anyone. Nor does he examine whether gun-free zones – like the Naval Yard in DC – actually encourage the type of violence and bad press he is trying to avoid.

Schultz concludes that he is proud of our nation and its first amendment heritage. With the likely fall-out from his announcement, Schultz may regret not giving more consideration to the very amendment that guarantees that heritage.